Boing Boinghttps://boingboing.netBrain candy for Happy Mutantsen-UShttp://boingboing.nethttp://boingboing.net/icons/bb144.jpgBoing BoingMon, 21 Jan 2019 13:30:51 PSThttps://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3hourly187954168This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.Latvia opens up its KGB files and names 4,000+ "informants," many of whom claim they were framedhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/wGdnsEPTr-w/ojars-rubenis.htmlPostin the bagsinformantskgblatviasnitches get stitchesspookstruth and reconciliationussrCory DoctorowMon, 21 Jan 2019 13:30:51 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696496
When Latvia attained independence in 1991, the retreating KGB left behind two sacks and two briefcases containing indexed records of the secret informants who had been paid to turn in their neighbors for offenses including anti-Kremlin activism and watching pornography.

After decades of deliberation, the Latvian Parliament voted to release the contents of the bags, naming 4,141 KGB informants, many of whom are still alive, and vigorously deny any involvement with the KGB; also named in the release is at least one journalist who was killed by Soviet forces while sympathetically covering the pro-independence movement.

The people who say they were falsely accused offer different theories to explain how their names came to be in the files: some say that they were added to KGB operatives' rosters of informants as part of the operatives' campaigns to impress their bosses and/or line their pockets with payouts for informants who were not, in fact, working for them. Others say it was a false flag planted by the KGB as they left Latvia, a way to slowly poison the independent state by sowing internal discord.

“It is impossible that the K.G.B. would leave behind a real list of agents in what it considered enemy territory,” Mr. Tjarve said. The files, he said, must have been doctored and deliberately left as a “special gift” to Latvia, now a member of NATO, as part of a “disinformation operation” by retreating Soviet officers.

Latvians found “in the bags,” the term of art for people who have turned up in the files, include a two-time former prime minister, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, a onetime foreign minister, leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, three post-independence rectors of the University of Latvia, celebrated filmmakers and assorted television stars and writers. Some names leaked years ago or appeared in a Latvian documentary, “Lustrum,” released late last year.

<p>
When Latvia attained independence in 1991, the retreating KGB left behind two sacks and two briefcases containing indexed records of the secret informants who had been paid to turn in their neighbors for offenses including anti-Kremlin activism and watching pornography.
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</p><p>
After decades of deliberation, the Latvian Parliament voted to release the contents of the bags, naming 4,141 KGB informants, many of whom are still alive, and vigorously deny any involvement with the KGB; also named in the release is at least one journalist who was killed by Soviet forces while sympathetically covering the pro-independence movement.
</p><p>
The people who say they were falsely accused offer different theories to explain how their names came to be in the files: some say that they were added to KGB operatives' rosters of informants as part of the operatives' campaigns to impress their bosses and/or line their pockets with payouts for informants who were not, in fact, working for them. Others say it was a false flag planted by the KGB as they left Latvia, a way to slowly poison the independent state by sowing internal discord.
<blockquote>
<p>
“It is impossible that the K.G.B. would leave behind a real list of agents in what it considered enemy territory,” Mr. Tjarve said. The files, he said, must have been doctored and deliberately left as a “special gift” to Latvia, now a member of NATO, as part of a “disinformation operation” by retreating Soviet officers.
</p><p>
Latvians found “in the bags,” the term of art for people who have turned up in the files, include a two-time former prime minister, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, a onetime foreign minister, leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, three post-independence rectors of the University of Latvia, celebrated filmmakers and assorted television stars and writers.</p></blockquote> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/ojars-rubenis.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>696496https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/ojars-rubenis.htmlWatch as the Ghostbusters franchise gets even more fracturedhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/LOhgANWVwzk/watch-as-the-ghostbusters-fran.htmlVideoSomething StrangeJason WeisbergerMon, 21 Jan 2019 12:40:22 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696488

Without Harold Ramis' Egon Spengler, why even bother trying to reunite the OG cast? The Wiig/Jones/McCarthy/McKinnon film was genius! Bring them all together!

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<p>
A sequel to the first two <em>Ghostbusters</em> movies is in the works. Leslie Jones, who played Ghostbuster <em>Patty Toland</em> in the latest Ghostbusters film, a reinvention of the entire franchise, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/leslie-jones-slams-insulting-new-ghostbusters-movie-781951/">is unhappy with the apparent decision to abandon the new cast</a>.</p>
<p>Without Harold Ramis' <em>Egon Spengler</em>, why even bother trying to reunite the OG cast? The Wiig/Jones/McCarthy/McKinnon film was genius! Bring them all together! <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/watch-as-the-ghostbusters-fran.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/watch-as-the-ghostbusters-fran.html/feed16696488https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/watch-as-the-ghostbusters-fran.htmlShoshana Zuboff discusses her new book, "Surveillance Capitalism"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/rBaGYkVsdns/problem-is-big-not-tech.htmlPosteven if you're paying you're still the productlate stage capitalismsurveillance capitalismweb theoryzuboffCory DoctorowMon, 21 Jan 2019 12:13:37 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696478
Ever since academic Shoshana Zuboff coined the term "Surveillance Capitalism" in 2015, it's become a touchstone for the debate over commercial surveillance (we've cited ithundreds of times). This week, Zuboff published her (very thick) book on the subject, to excellent early notices; I haven't read it yet, but it's next on my list.

Though I'm familiar with the general shape of Zuboff's argument, I'm really eager to get to grips with the specifics, and to see how it's evolved over the last three-and-some years.

Here's a head-start: in this weekend's Observer, John Naughton (previously) interviewed Zuboff at length about her book, and what she said bodes well for the book.

Derek Powazek's memorable phrase, "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product" is true, but incomplete. It's true that companies that use surveillance and data to pay their bills view their "customers" as the advertisers, rather than the users.

The kind of capitalism that's the problem isn't "surveillance" capitalism, it's unfettered capitalism, where market concentration and regulatory capture allows companies to monopolize whole sectors and then abuse the customers they control. It's true that some giants moderate their behavior (Apple voluntarily eschewing surveillance), but this is only ever instrumental, about positioning a place in the market, and never about principle (Apple's got a very flexible attitude toward privacy indeed).

The problem with this misdiagnosis is that it implies that if only there were cost barriers to participation in online discourse, we'd dispense with the pathologies of surveillance capitalism. But in our highly unequal times, a cost barrier just means that the rich get to talk and the rest of us have to listen -- or worse yet, we'll only get to participate in forums where the wealthy set the rules on the basis of ideologies much more specific and targeted than profit-at-any-cost.

But as I say, I'm basing this on Zuboff's summary of her position and not the book itself. Watch this space for a full review as soon as I get a chance to read the book.

While it is impossible to imagine surveillance capitalism without the digital, it is easy to imagine the digital without surveillance capitalism. The point cannot be emphasised enough: surveillance capitalism is not technology. Digital technologies can take many forms and have many effects, depending upon the social and economic logics that bring them to life. Surveillance capitalism relies on algorithms and sensors, machine intelligence and platforms, but it is not the same as any of those.

<p>
Ever since academic Shoshana Zuboff coined the term <a href="http://www.shoshanazuboff.com/new/recent-publications-and-interviews/big-other-surveillance-capitalism-and-the-prospects-of-an-information-civilization/">"Surveillance Capitalism"</a> in 2015, it's become a touchstone for the debate over commercial surveillance (we've <a href="https://boingboing.net/tag/surveillance-capitalism/page/5">cited it</a> <a href="https://boingboing.net/page/1?s=%22surveillance+capitalism%22">hundreds of times</a>). This week, Zuboff published <a href="https://amzn.to/2FMqWQp">her (very thick) book on the subject</a>, to excellent early notices; I haven't read it yet, but <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/12/bezos-vs-bookselling.html">it's next on my list</a>.
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Though I'm familiar with the general shape of Zuboff's argument, I'm really eager to get to grips with the specifics, and to see how it's evolved over the last three-and-some years.
</p><p>
Here's a head-start: in this weekend's <em>Observer</em>, John Naughton (<a href="https://boingboing.net/?s=%22john%20naughton%22">previously</a>) interviewed Zuboff at length about her book, and what she said bodes well for the book.
</p><p>
That said, I want to mark out an area of caution that I have with what I've seen so far of her argument -- <a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/03/05/a-better-world-is-possible.html">a problem that I've had with other critical books about the rise of Big Tech</a>: locating the original sin of Big Tech in advertising and surveillance, rather than concentration and monopoly.
</p><p>
Derek Powazek's <a href="http://powazek.com/posts/3229">memorable phrase</a>, "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product" is true, but incomplete. It's true that companies that use surveillance and data to pay their bills view their "customers" as the advertisers, rather than the users.
</p><p>
"You're the product" is true in advertising models, but it's <em>also</em> true in for-pay models. Whether it's Apple sustaining itself by <a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/11/09/straight-to-landfill.html">blocking</a> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/10/20/louis-rossman.html">third-party repairs</a>, <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/05/spotify-too.html">extracting rents from app vendors</a>, and <a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/09/14/apples-29-iphone-battery-re.html">sneakily degrading the performance of its products over time</a>; or John Deere <a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/09/20/sold-out-by-cfb.html">ripping off farmers for repairs</a> to six-figure purchases, or GM <a href="https://boingboing.net/2017/04/22/drm-eschatology.html">locking out independent repair and third-party spares</a>. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/problem-is-big-not-tech.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/problem-is-big-not-tech.html/feed1696478https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/problem-is-big-not-tech.htmlRead the fine print on this coyote warning signhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/d_jiwGXevLA/read-the-fine-print-on-this-co.htmlPostAnd the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"Jason WeisbergerMon, 21 Jan 2019 11:07:25 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696479
This fine sign from Stephen Zunes facebook page.
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This fine sign from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2480728648622457&#038;set=a.103435686351777&#038;type=3&#038;theater">Stephen Zunes</a> facebook page. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/read-the-fine-print-on-this-co.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/read-the-fine-print-on-this-co.html/feed22696479https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/read-the-fine-print-on-this-co.htmlFlight attendant forced to wipe passenger's rearhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/cfxGn-xenFE/flight-attendant-forced-to-wip.htmlVideoairplanesterrible customersJason WeisbergerMon, 21 Jan 2019 10:36:37 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696475

An EVA airlines flight attendant, supported by her union, complains the airline has failed to curb a routine problem flyer. Her recent experience sounds absolutely dreadful.

Folks need different types of assistance on a plane. I can absolutely understand the hardship of using an awful airplane restroom that is barely designed to work for the base human model. No one should feel shame for asking for legitimately needed assistance. The more you read this story, however, the more it seems that this passenger was not just asking for help.

Accompanied by representatives from the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union, the flight attendant, who declined to give her name, said an overweight man confined to a wheelchair informed her he required assistance going to the bathroom about two hours into the flight.

The man asked the flight attendant making the complaint and two other female members of staff to help him remove his underwear, indicating he was unable to do so himself.

"I felt that as a flight attendant, removing a passenger's underwear was beyond the scope of my responsibilities," said the deputy cabin service head.

Despite their reluctance, three female members of the flight crew, EVA has no male flight attendants, tried to cover the passenger's genitals with a blanket while taking off his underwear.

The flight attendant said it was then that the passenger slapped her hand causing her to drop the blanket and exposing himself. He also demanded that the lavatory door be kept open, otherwise "he couldn't breathe."

The crew managed to keep the door closed, but when the man was finished, he refused to leave the bathroom unless they help him wipe his bottom.

The crew initially refused, but considering the need for other passengers to use the toilet, the cabin service director eventually did as the man asked. It was while helping him that the passenger started to make moaning noises and said "deeper," deputy cabin service head said.

The union said the incident clearly constituted sexual harassment and asked that EVA sue the passenger, who has caused trouble on several previous occasions when flying with the company.

Moreover, it was revealed that the passenger in question defecated in his underwear on a previous flight in May 2018, after which the airline did not place him on a blacklist, but rather left frontline flight attendants to deal with the man every time he flew with the airline, the union said.

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<p>
An EVA airlines flight attendant, supported by her union, complains the airline has failed to curb a routine problem flyer. Her recent experience sounds absolutely dreadful.</p>
<p>
Folks need different types of assistance on a plane. I can absolutely understand the hardship of using an awful airplane restroom that is barely designed to work for the base human model. No one should feel shame for asking for legitimately needed assistance. The more you read this story, however, the more it seems that this passenger was not just asking for help.</p>
<p>
<a href="http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201901210016.aspx">Focus Taiwan</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Accompanied by representatives from the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union, the flight attendant, who declined to give her name, said an overweight man confined to a wheelchair informed her he required assistance going to the bathroom about two hours into the flight.</p>
<p>
The man asked the flight attendant making the complaint and two other female members of staff to help him remove his underwear, indicating he was unable to do so himself.</p>
<p>
"I felt that as a flight attendant, removing a passenger's underwear was beyond the scope of my responsibilities," said the deputy cabin service head.</p>
<p>
Despite their reluctance, three female members of the flight crew, EVA has no male flight attendants, tried to cover the passenger's genitals with a blanket while taking off his underwear.</p>
<p>
The flight attendant said it was then that the passenger slapped her hand causing her to drop the blanket and exposing himself. He also demanded that the lavatory door be kept open, otherwise "he couldn't breathe."</p>
<p>
The crew managed to keep the door closed, but when the man was finished, he refused to leave the bathroom unless they help him wipe his bottom.</p></blockquote> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/flight-attendant-forced-to-wip.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/flight-attendant-forced-to-wip.html/feed15696475https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/flight-attendant-forced-to-wip.htmlFantastic interview with Martin Luther King Jr.http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/q9xXZUFAlvo/fantastic-interview-with-marti.htmlVideoMLK DayJason WeisbergerMon, 21 Jan 2019 10:20:40 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696472

]]><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The red MAGA hat is the new white hood. </p>
<p>Without white boys being able to empathize with other people, humanity will continue to destroy itself. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FirstThoughtsWhenIWakeUp?src=hash&#38;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FirstThoughtsWhenIWakeUp</a></p>
<p>&#8212; Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) <a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1087021713651421184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 20, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
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<p>
Alyssa Milano tells it like it is. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/the-red-maga-hat-is-the-new.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/the-red-maga-hat-is-the-new.html/feed43696468https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/the-red-maga-hat-is-the-new.htmlThe EU's ambitious, fearless antitrust czar is unlikely to win another termhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/eFHkfUD3RWI/dansk-memes.htmlPostantitrustcompetitiondenmarkeuMargrethe VestagerCory DoctorowMon, 21 Jan 2019 09:13:48 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696462
Margrethe Vestager (previously) has been the EU antitrust commissioner for five years, and now she is getting ready to step down (her party is unlikely to prevail next year, so she will likely be replaced), having presided over an unprecedented era of antitrust enforcement that has seen billions of euros extracted in penalties from Google, Apple and Facebook, with Amazon now under her microscope.

Vestager formerly served as the Danish deputy PM and economy minister, as part of a centre-left, market-oriented party founded by her great-grandfather. Her record in Danish politics is something of a mixed bag (among other things, she presided over swingeing welfare cuts).

She's got a much better record as antitrust commissioner. Her enforcement hasn't been limited to the tech sector: she's also gone after Starbucks, McDonald's, Nike, Fiat and Gazprom, taking on both anticompetitive behaviour and tax dodging (she's also done much to end competition among EU governments to create tax-havens that lure in multinationals to create headquarters-of-convenience).

That said, her vision for the next steps of antitrust enforcement are a little...weird. For example, she wants to build on the GDPR's requirements to disclose how personal information is used by encouraging the creation of "Independent digital assistants that will make sure that your privacy settings are maintained no matter where you go."

The upcoming EU elections are going to be game-changing in more ways than one. The insurgent parties are ascendant, and some are left wing, and others are far-right xenophobes, suggesting a kind of scaled-up version of the current state of Italian politics, which is to say: a mess.

"When you look at our cases you'd see that what they have in common is not nationality. It's the fact that they're multinationals," she said.

Her aim, she says, is to keep competition fair.

"That was the idea before the world became digital," Vestager said. "And it becomes an even more important idea when the world becomes digital because things are so fast moving."

<p>
Margrethe Vestager (<a href="https://boingboing.net/?s=Vestager">previously</a>) has been the EU antitrust commissioner for five years, and now she is getting ready to step down (her party is unlikely to prevail next year, so she will likely be replaced), having presided over an unprecedented era of antitrust enforcement that has seen billions of euros extracted in penalties from Google, Apple and Facebook, with Amazon now under her microscope.
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</p><p>
Vestager formerly served as the Danish deputy PM and economy minister, as part of a centre-left, market-oriented party founded by her great-grandfather. Her record in Danish politics is something of a mixed bag (among other things, she presided over swingeing welfare cuts).
</p><p>
She's got a much better record as antitrust commissioner. Her enforcement hasn't been limited to the tech sector: she's also gone after Starbucks, McDonald's, Nike, Fiat and Gazprom, taking on both anticompetitive behaviour and tax dodging (she's also done much to end competition among EU governments to create tax-havens that lure in multinationals to create headquarters-of-convenience).
</p><p>
That said, her vision for the next steps of antitrust enforcement are a little...weird. For example, she wants to build on the GDPR's requirements to disclose how personal information is used by encouraging the creation of "Independent digital assistants that will make sure that your privacy settings are maintained no matter where you go."
</p><p>
The upcoming EU elections are going to be game-changing in more ways than one. The insurgent parties are ascendant, and some are left wing, and others are far-right xenophobes, suggesting a kind of scaled-up version of the current state of Italian politics, which is to say: a mess. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/dansk-memes.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/dansk-memes.html/feed2696462https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/dansk-memes.htmlThe Boing Boing blog turns 19 todayhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/OqWZ4W1ZCgU/old-enuf-to-vote.htmlPostwe wear our trousers rolledweb theoryCory DoctorowMon, 21 Jan 2019 08:42:20 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696454
Nineteen years ago today, Mark decided to do some research on the new Blogger service for an article in The Industry Standard, and so he created a blog and started posting to it (the Standard spiked the story, on the basis that blogging was probably a passing fad).

<p>
Nineteen years ago today, Mark decided to do some research on the new Blogger service for an article in <em>The Industry Standard</em>, and so he created a blog and <a href="https://boingboing.net/2000/01/21/street-tech-reviews.html">started posting to it</a> (the <em>Standard</em> spiked the story, on the basis that blogging was probably a passing fad).
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Less than a year later, I <a href="https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html">started a stint as a guestblogger</a> that is still going, more than 18 years later.
</p><p>
David came on board <a href="https://boingboing.net/2001/03/27/in-the-tradition-of.html">a couple months after me</a>, and Xeni's <a href="https://boingboing.net/2002/10/09/cellphonecontrolled.html">guestblogging stint</a> started late the next year and, like mine, never ended; Rob kicked off <a href="https://boingboing.net/2005/07/06/micromegas.html">in 2005</a>, and Jason's first post was in <a href="https://boingboing.net/2010/06/09/saturday-in-la-comed.html">2010</a>, tho he joined us in 2006.
</p><p>
And now we are 19, and old, and still weird, but the internet is less weird in some important ways (<a href="https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040">"a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four"</a>).
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<a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/old-enuf-to-vote.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/old-enuf-to-vote.html/feed26696454https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/old-enuf-to-vote.html"Capitalism has outlived its usefulness" -Martin Luther King, Jrhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/uHcChhAm8HE/mlk-was-a-socialist.htmlPostcivil rightsHistorylate stage capitalismmike fucking pencemlkvietnamCory DoctorowMon, 21 Jan 2019 08:20:52 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696444
"I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, viz, to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems, it falls victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes."

"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. …"

“I started thinking about the fact that right here in our country we spend millions of dollars every day to store surplus food. And I said to myself: ‘I know where we can store that food free of charge — in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God’s children in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even in our own nation, who go to bed hungry at night.’"

<p>
"I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, viz, to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems, it falls victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes."
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</p><p>
</p><p>
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. …"
</p><p>
</p><p>
“I started thinking about the fact that right here in our country we spend millions of dollars every day to store surplus food. And I said to myself: ‘I know where we can store that food free of charge — in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God’s children in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even in our own nation, who go to bed hungry at night.’"
</p><p>
<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/16/1621178/-Dr-King-the-greatest-purveyor-of-violence-in-the-world-today-my-own-government"> Dr King: "...</a> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/mlk-was-a-socialist.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/mlk-was-a-socialist.html/feed14696444https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/mlk-was-a-socialist.htmlMartin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream," the deep house mixhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/pJZ2tAVWw4U/martin-luther-king-jr-s-i.htmlPostactivismequalitymlkmusicDavid PescovitzMon, 21 Jan 2019 08:20:35 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696443From 1989, Fingers Inc.'s beautiful mix of "Can You Feel It" with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech:

]]><p></p>
<p>If American police were trained to do this sort of thing, how could they experience the joy of lethal escalation? [<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/ai8ojv/in_asia_they_use_pike_walls_to_stop_knife_wielders/">via</a>]</p>
<p>The British police don't use pikes, but they <a href="https://boingboing.net/2016/12/29/uk-police-subdue-a-man-who-cha.html">do have ways and means</a>. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/using-pikes-to-confront-and-im.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/using-pikes-to-confront-and-im.html/feed55696432https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/using-pikes-to-confront-and-im.htmlThe Nazis and your privacyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ipMElQb4FyE/census-and-genocide.htmlPost#deletefacebookgenocidegermanygodwins lawHistorynazisOld schoolprivacyWWIIRoderick MillerMon, 21 Jan 2019 06:49:04 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696429
The nonprofit organization to which I belong recently put the personal data of around 410,000 people on the internet, connected to interactive street maps of where they lived. The data includes their full names, date and place of birth, known residential address, and often includes their professions and arrest records, sometimes even information about mental or physical handicaps. It also lists whether any of their grandparents were Jewish.

How would you feel if somebody published your personal data on the internet along the same lines? The website described above is based on the personal data of victims of Nazi persecution and is part of a memorialization project. But given that much of personal data is probably available on a number of corporate servers to which the government could have unrestricted access, what is to stop this data from being misused? Even if the information was never made public, how would your personal data be exploited if a right-wing Christian extremist government were to take power in the United States? Is it so far-fetched to imagine such personal data exploitation in a Handmaid’s Tale future?

The Nazi German government conducted a census on 17 May 1939 in which a special “supplementary card” was included, where every person had to list if each of their four grandparents was Jewish or not. In the 1980s, a census was conducted in West Germany that led to a lot of resistance from the left, including massive street demonstrations. Several academic works about the planned 1980s census were published at the time, in which the thesis was put forth that the Nazis misused the 1939 census data to create the deportation lists to send the Jews to concentration camps and their subsequent deaths. The resistance to the 1980s census led to its being delayed from the original date of 1981 until they finally managed, in 1987, to meet the criteria put forth by a decision of a 1983 German Supreme Court which severely limited the extent to which the private data of individuals could be used.

Later research, however, proved that although the Nazis did, in the end, misuse the 1939 census data, in that they sent the “supplementary cards” of people with Jewish grandparents to the local police (ie Gestapo) registration offices throughout Germany, this only happened in late 1941 and 1942. Not only were the deportations already in full operation by this point, but by this time the data on the “supplementary cards” was largely no longer valid — many Jews had already been deported, and most of those who remained had been forced in the interim to move into smaller, crowded apartments, so-called “Jew houses.”

The 1939 census data was not needed to create deportation lists by 1941/1942 anyway, since the Jewish communities had been forced by the Gestapo to make card indexes of all known Jewish people. These card indexes — it was a typical Nazi tactic to force the people they were persecuting to directly assist in their own persecution — were usually the basis of the deportation lists. In some cases, the Jewish community was itself forced to write the deportation lists and decide who could remain and who got on the train.

Today we don’t need the Gestapo to force us to give up our personal data, we offer it up voluntarily to social media like Facebook or major US government contractors for the military and intelligence communities like Google. Many people offer their data up to maintain their social presence on the internet or merely for convenience. The standard reply to this is often “I don’t have anything to hide,” but that’s based upon the assumption of a government that respects personal privacy and doesn’t arrest people based on their political opinions, sexual preferences, or lifestyle choices.

If the Nazis had had access to personal data the same way that these corporate conglomerates do today, there would likely have been very few survivors of the persecution of people for their race, political stance, sexual preference or for the fact that they were somehow seen as physically or mentally handicapped. Add CCTV video surveillance and facial recognition software to the mix and there would have been next to no survivors. This isn’t some kind of alternate reality conjecture á la Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle, however. The abuse of data by the NSA has already shown what is possible in a supposedly constitutional democracy, and the slow slide of the US government into new forms of corruption in the last decades, culminating in the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president, leaves a bleak vision of a future that eclipses even the worst fictional visions of dystopia.

One of the main problems is that we don’t expect or receive protection of our personal data by default, and though the EU has already created such laws, as it stands right now you need to take extra steps yourself to reduce the amount of your data that can be exploited: quit Facebook; reduce using Google insofar as it’s possible (ie no email accounts); use browsers like Epic that don’t store your data, automatically delete all cookies and trackers, and hide your geolocation with a built-in VPN. But unless most of the population takes this step, which is very unlikely, or laws are put into place to guarantee personal data privacy by default instead of with a fair amount of extra effort, then most of the population is in the position to be commercially exploited and maybe, depending on how things go in our so-called constitutional democracies, persecuted in ways they can’t yet imagine.

I deal with Nazi history on a daily basis, and that doesn’t make it any easier to read the daily news. I look around the streets of Berlin, where I live, and the memories of the past are omnipresent in the places where victims of the Nazis once lived, loved, and worked. My distinction between past, present and future is getting more and more blurred, and the further we allow ourselves to offer up our personal data to institutions whose use of that data is out of our control and whose abuse of that data seems to increase every day, the less this distinction between past, present and future seems to become.

Roderick Miller is a US-born historian living in Berlin and the chairman of the nonprofit organization Tracing the Past, whose online project Mapping the Lives ties personal biographies of those persecuted by the Nazi regime with interactive street maps.
]]>

<p>
The nonprofit organization to which I belong <a href="https://www.mappingthelives.org/">recently put the personal data of around 410,000 people on the internet</a>, connected to interactive street maps of where they lived. The data includes their full names, date and place of birth, known residential address, and often includes their professions and arrest records, sometimes even information about mental or physical handicaps. It also lists whether any of their grandparents were Jewish.
<span id="more-696429"></span>
</p><p>
How would you feel if somebody published your personal data on the internet along the same lines? The website described above is based on the personal data of victims of Nazi persecution and is part of a memorialization project. But given that much of personal data is probably available on a number of corporate servers to which the government could have unrestricted access, what is to stop this data from being misused? Even if the information was never made public, how would your personal data be exploited if a right-wing Christian extremist government were to take power in the United States? Is it so far-fetched to imagine such personal data exploitation in a <em>Handmaid’s Tale</em> future?
</p><p>
The Nazi German government conducted a census on 17 May 1939 in which a special “supplementary card” was included, where every person had to list if each of their four grandparents was Jewish or not. In the 1980s, a census was conducted in West Germany that led to a lot of resistance from the left, including massive street demonstrations. Several academic works about the planned 1980s census were published at the time, in which the thesis was put forth that the Nazis misused the 1939 census data to create the deportation lists to send the Jews to concentration camps and their subsequent deaths. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/census-and-genocide.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/census-and-genocide.html/feed29696429https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/census-and-genocide.htmlAussie cops filmed beating kid with autism, disabled senior, and morehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/3Qz7WDCoSsA/aussie-cops-filmed-beating-kid.htmlPostaustraliapolice brutalityRob BeschizzaMon, 21 Jan 2019 06:39:03 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696425

In another case, Victoria police beat up a teenager who had ridden his scooter in front a police car, claiming that the baby-faced kid was the middle-aged, bearded car thief they were unable to find.

Tommy Lovett was riding by a police car on his scooter when he was wrongly arrested. ... Documents obtained by The Age reportedly support Mr Lovett’s claim that he was hurled into a fence, assaulted while handcuffed and capsicum sprayed — leaving his body bruised, grazed and bleeding. Victoria Police vehemently denied the claims and an internal investigation found nothing wrong with Mr Lovett’s arrest. However, a human rights lawyer who spoke to 7.30 said the cases — including one where a Melbourne doctor claims police threw her to the ground and punched her in the head — outlined in the investigation are alarming.

A Victorian policeman retained his job and rank despite being caught on CCTV assaulting a drunk disability pensioner at Geelong Police Station. Revelations about the handling of the case by Victoria Police come amid growing pressure on the State Government to back reforms of the state's police complaints system.

]]><p></p>
<p>"Horrific" CCTV footage shows <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/shocking-footage-shows-alleged-police-brutality-from-victoria-police-officers/news-story/b67e87ddca1b539e25e37a1374c67359">a group of Aussie cops savagely beating a teen with autism</a>, and the resulting outrage is drawing attention to the country's worsening reputation for police brutality. </p>
<p>In another case, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/arrested-for-someone-else-s-crime-a-teen-was-left-badly-injured-20190120-p50sh6.html">Victoria police beat up a teenager</a> who had ridden his scooter in front a police car, claiming that the baby-faced kid was the middle-aged, bearded car thief they were unable to find.</p>
<blockquote><p>Tommy Lovett was riding by a police car on his scooter when he was wrongly arrested. ... Documents obtained by The Age reportedly support Mr Lovett’s claim that he was hurled into a fence, assaulted while handcuffed and capsicum sprayed — leaving his body bruised, grazed and bleeding. Victoria Police vehemently denied the claims and an internal investigation found nothing wrong with Mr Lovett’s arrest. However, a human rights lawyer who spoke to 7.30 said the cases — including one where a Melbourne doctor claims police threw her to the ground and punched her in the head — outlined in the investigation are alarming.</p>
<p>“These cases keep going on,” he said. “There’s clearly cultural systemic issues at work."</p></blockquote>
<p>More footage shows <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-21/cctv-footage-shows-police-officer-assaulting-man/10729284">another Aussie cop attacking a disabled senior</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">WARNING: This video contains footage some viewers may find distressing. CCTV footage shows a disability pensioner being assaulted by a police officer at a police station. More tonight on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/abc730?src=hash&#38;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#abc730</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/Chris_Gillett_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Chris_Gillett_</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Ageinvestigates?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Ageinvestigates</a> <a href="https://t.co/zxNP4KFRP2">pic.twitter.com/zxNP4KFRP2</a></p>
<p>&#8212; abc730 (@abc730) <a href="https://twitter.com/abc730/status/1087096176006987778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 20, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p>
<blockquote><p>A Victorian policeman retained his job and rank despite being caught on CCTV assaulting a drunk disability pensioner at Geelong Police Station.</p></blockquote> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/aussie-cops-filmed-beating-kid.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/aussie-cops-filmed-beating-kid.html/feed8696425https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/aussie-cops-filmed-beating-kid.htmlFox & Friends apologizes for announcing death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who liveshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/K6G6lbDxTHQ/fox-friends-apologizes-for-a.htmlPostmistakesobitsRob BeschizzaMon, 21 Jan 2019 05:59:09 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696418Too bad, conservatives!

As the show came back from commercials, they briefly showed a graphic of Ginsburg with the caption 1933-2019.

It's established journalistic practice to have pre-written graphics and obits and whatnot ready to roll for famous people. But having them floating around in production databases and content management systems, one click of a "Publish" button from disaster, is a common mistake.

]]><p><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-friends-apologizes-for-accidental-graphic-saying-ruth-bader-ginsburg-is-dead/">Too bad, conservatives!</a> </p>
<blockquote><p>Fox &#038; Friends apologized on Monday after briefly airing a graphic suggesting that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead.</p>
<p>As the show came back from commercials, they briefly showed a graphic of Ginsburg with the caption 1933-2019.</p></blockquote>
<p>It's established journalistic practice to have pre-written graphics and obits and whatnot ready to roll for famous people. But having them floating around in production databases and content management systems, one click of a "Publish" button from disaster, is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries">a common mistake.</a> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/fox-friends-apologizes-for-a.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/fox-friends-apologizes-for-a.html/feed38696418https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/fox-friends-apologizes-for-a.htmlKamala Harris makes it officialhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/XL9O2LVGmFc/kamala-harris-makes-it-officia.htmlPostpoliticsRob BeschizzaMon, 21 Jan 2019 05:31:27 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696406California Senator and former attorney general Kamala Harris is running for President.

Kamala Harris announced Monday that she is running for president in 2020, arguing that the time has come to fight against what she views as the injustices of the past two years of the Trump presidency. In a brief video from her campaign that was released on social media Monday morning at the same time she appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," Harris called on her supporters to join with her to "claim our future."

"Justice. Decency. Equality. Freedom. Democracy. These aren't just words. They're the values we as Americans cherish. And they're all on the line now," Harris said in the video, teasing her official kickoff in her birthplace of Oakland next Sunday.

]]><p>California Senator and former attorney general Kamala Harris <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sen-kamala-harris-announces-run-president-2020/story?id=60472358">is running for President</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Kamala Harris announced Monday that she is running for president in 2020, arguing that the time has come to fight against what she views as the injustices of the past two years of the Trump presidency. In a brief video from her campaign that was released on social media Monday morning at the same time she appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," Harris called on her supporters to join with her to "claim our future."</p>
<p>"Justice. Decency. Equality. Freedom. Democracy. These aren't just words. They're the values we as Americans cherish. And they're all on the line now," Harris said in the video, teasing her official kickoff in her birthplace of Oakland next Sunday.</p></blockquote>
<p>Harris <a href="https://kamalaharris.org/meet-kamala/">offers a progressive platform</a>, but she is also a dyed-in-the-wool authoritarian who <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris#Tenure_as_California_Attorney_General">fought relentlessly to shield bad cops, prosecutorial misconduct and reactionary policies</a> while in office — and who found it hard to explain why its decisions sometimes <a href="https://boingboing.net/2017/01/06/new-senator-from-california-ca.html">shielded well-connected men suspected of serious corporate crimes</a>. It's rare you find someone whose professional hostility to constitutional rights is so throroughly described in public record that <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2019/01/09/kamala-harris-new-book-tries-to-massage">her launch literature centers entirely on recasting her career</a>.</p>
<p>Photo: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris#/media/File:Kamala_Harris_IMG_0779.jpg">Public Domain, uncredited</a> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/kamala-harris-makes-it-officia.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/kamala-harris-makes-it-officia.html/feed26696406https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/kamala-harris-makes-it-officia.htmlCES-goer says his camera was killed by a self-driving car's LIDARhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/nF61sYJ5NDQ/1550nm-considered-harmful.htmlPostautomotiveautonomous vehiclescar warscv dazzlepew pewCory DoctorowSun, 20 Jan 2019 16:13:38 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696365
Jit Ray Chowdhury attended CES in his capacity as an autonomous vehicle engineer, and while there, snapped a picture of a self-driving car equipped with a LIDAR system from Aeye; he says the LIDAR's laser lanced through his camera's aperture and zapped its optical sensor, burning a permanent spot into it and ruining the camera (Aeye has offered to replace it).

Self-driving cars use both conventional cameras and LIDAR to guide themselves so any camera-blinding potential in LIDAR systems on autonomous vehicles could wreak havoc with other nearby cars.

AEye uses 1550nm lasers. And unfortunately for Chowdhury, cameras are not filled with fluid like human eyes are. That means that high-power 1550nm lasers can easily cause damage to camera sensors even if they don't pose a threat to human eyes.

AEye is known for claiming that its lidar units have much longer range than those of competitors. While most lidar makers say their high-end lidars can see 200 or 300 meters, AEye says that its lidar has a range of 1,000 meters. When I talked to AEye CEO Luis Dussan about this claim last month, he said that one factor in AEye's long range is the use of a powerful fiber laser.

"One of the most important things about fiber lasers is that they can be amplified," Dassan said. "Very short pulse, huge amount of signal."

<p>
Jit Ray Chowdhury attended CES in his capacity as an autonomous vehicle engineer, and while there, snapped a picture of a self-driving car equipped with a LIDAR system from Aeye; he says the LIDAR's laser lanced through his camera's aperture and zapped its optical sensor, <a href="https://twitter.com/jitrc/status/1082884177920327681">burning a permanent spot into it</a> and ruining the camera (Aeye has offered to replace it).
<span id="more-696365"></span>
</p><p>
LIDAR systems need to comply with rigorous safety rules to ensure that they don't blind human eyes, but camera eyes are much more sensitive (this is the basis for <a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/09/25/scott-urban.html">IR-reflective materials that confuse CCTVs</a>).
</p><p>
Self-driving cars use both conventional cameras and LIDAR to guide themselves so any camera-blinding potential in LIDAR systems on autonomous vehicles could wreak havoc with other nearby cars.
</p><p>
<blockquote>
<p>
AEye uses 1550nm lasers. And unfortunately for Chowdhury, cameras are not filled with fluid like human eyes are. That means that high-power 1550nm lasers can easily cause damage to camera sensors even if they don't pose a threat to human eyes.
</p><p>
AEye is known for claiming that its lidar units have much longer range than those of competitors. While most lidar makers say their high-end lidars can see 200 or 300 meters, AEye says that its lidar has a range of 1,000 meters. When I talked to AEye CEO Luis Dussan about this claim last month, he said that one factor in AEye's long range is the use of a powerful fiber laser.
</p><p>
"One of the most important things about fiber lasers is that they can be amplified," Dassan said.</p></blockquote> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/1550nm-considered-harmful.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/1550nm-considered-harmful.html/feed21696365https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/1550nm-considered-harmful.htmlLonger video of Native Americans, MAGA cap high-schoolers, and Black Hebrew Israelites encounter tells a different storyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/VOuaH365Q3k/longer-video-of-native-america.htmlVideodemonstrationsMark FrauenfelderSun, 20 Jan 2019 16:08:25 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696357

=====
The story about an encounter between a group of high schoolers at a March for Life rally and Native Americans at an Indigenous People's March in Washington DC appears to be more complex than what was seen in a three-minute video and from news reports in the Washington Post, CNN, New York Times, and other major news media. After watching a much longer video that shows the lead-up and aftermath of the incident, it doesn't look like the high school students were harassing the Native Americans as was reported yesterday.

James Martin, a Jesuit priest, an editor at large at America Magazine has excellent insight into the complexities of this still-unfolding story, which he wrote in the form of a Twitter thread:

And while I don't agree with Reason all the time (I agree with their stance on civil liberties and disagree with their stance on unfettered free markets), this essay Jake Tapper retweeted is worth reading:

]]><p></p>
<p><strong>UPDATE 1/20/19 7:25pm:</strong> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/20/us/covington-kentucky-student-statement/index.html">Statement of Nick Sandmann, Covington Catholic High School junior, regarding incident at the Lincoln Memorial</a></p>
<p>=====
The story about an encounter between a group of high schoolers at a March for Life rally and Native Americans at an Indigenous People's March in Washington DC appears to be more complex than what was seen in a <a href="https://youtu.be/sIG5ZB0fw1k">three-minute video</a> and from news reports in the <em>Washington Post, CNN, New York Times</em>, and other major news media. After watching a <a href="https://youtu.be/t3EC1_gcr34">much longer video</a> that shows the lead-up and aftermath of the incident, it doesn't look like the high school students were harassing the Native Americans as was <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mob-of-young-maga-hat-wearers.html">reported yesterday</a>.</p>
<p>James Martin, a Jesuit priest, an editor at large at <em>America Magazine</em> has excellent insight into the complexities of this still-unfolding story, which he wrote in the form of a Twitter thread:</p>
<strong><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1087108813331857411.html">Thread by @JamesMartinSJ: "Re : I will be happy to apologize for condemning the actions of the students if it turns out that they were somehow acti […]" #CovingtonHighSchool</a></strong>
<p></p>
<p>And while I don't agree with <em>Reason</em> all the time (I agree with their stance on civil liberties and disagree with their stance on unfettered free markets), this essay Jake Tapper retweeted is worth reading:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/reason?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@reason</a>: “Video footage strongly contradicts Native American veteran Nathan Phillips&#39; claim that Covington Catholic High School boys harassed him. The media got this one completely wrong,” writes <a href="https://twitter.com/robbysoave?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@robbysoave</a> <a href="https://t.co/9Ki4iiTkQ9">https://t.co/9Ki4iiTkQ9</a></p>
<p>&#8212; Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1087100286433402881?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 20, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>I'll continue to update this post as new information emerges. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/longer-video-of-native-america.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/longer-video-of-native-america.html/feed187696357https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/longer-video-of-native-america.htmlOnline viewer for Windows 98's icon sethttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/GYL7jpMmK84/online-viewer-for-windows-98.htmlPostdesigniconswindowsRob BeschizzaSun, 20 Jan 2019 09:44:16 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696344win98icons.alexmeub.com presents Windows 98's meticulously utilitarian and currently fashionable icons in an easy, no-nonsense way.

Why are they so good?

Rather than some designer’s flashy vision of the future, Windows 98 icons made the operating system feel like a place to get real work done. They had hard edges, soft colors and easy-to-recognize symbols. ... Maybe its nostalgia, but I still prefer the classic icons of Windows 98 over the shiny, drop-shadowed icons of later years.

]]><p><a href="http://win98icons.alexmeub.com">win98icons.alexmeub.com</a> presents Windows 98's <a href="https://alexmeub.com/old-windows-icons/">meticulously utilitarian</a> and currently fashionable icons in an easy, no-nonsense way.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Why are they so good?</strong></p>
<p>Rather than some designer’s flashy vision of the future, Windows 98 icons made the operating system feel like a place to get real work done. They had hard edges, soft colors and easy-to-recognize symbols. ... Maybe its nostalgia, but I still prefer the classic icons of Windows 98 over the shiny, drop-shadowed icons of later years.</p></blockquote> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/online-viewer-for-windows-98.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/online-viewer-for-windows-98.html/feed26696344https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/online-viewer-for-windows-98.htmlAnother newsreader calls MLK Jr "Martin Luther C**n"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/c48c2ZI1Sbg/another-newsreader-calls-mlk-j.htmlPostmistakesRob BeschizzaSun, 20 Jan 2019 07:20:02 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696332

Kevin Steincross, a veteran morning anchor on Fox2 St. Louis, was discussing an upcoming tribute to the civil rights leader when he pronounced Dr. King’s last name as an anti-black slur during the 5 a.m. broadcast.

Hours later, during the 9 a.m. show, Mr. Steincross said the station had heard from a viewer that he had mispronounced the name.

“Please know I have total respect for Dr. King, what he meant and continues to mean to our country,” Mr. Steincross said. “This was not intentional in any way, and I sincerely apologize.”

]]><p></p>
<p>Slip of the tongue! <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/us/mlk-kevin-steincross-slur.html">We just can't help ourselves! </a></p>
<blockquote><p>Kevin Steincross, a veteran morning anchor on Fox2 St. Louis, was discussing an upcoming tribute to the civil rights leader when he pronounced Dr. King’s last name as an anti-black slur during the 5 a.m. broadcast.</p>
<p>Hours later, during the 9 a.m. show, Mr. Steincross said the station had heard from a viewer that he had mispronounced the name.</p>
<p>“Please know I have total respect for Dr. King, what he meant and continues to mean to our country,” Mr. Steincross said. “This was not intentional in any way, and I sincerely apologize.”</p></blockquote> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/another-newsreader-calls-mlk-j.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/another-newsreader-calls-mlk-j.html/feed63696332https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/another-newsreader-calls-mlk-j.htmlSci-Fi Sundays: Analog, December 1962http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/HTXHqzp3i2M/sci-fi-sundays-analog-decemb.htmlPostillustrationretroscansci fiscience fictionCaleb KraftSun, 20 Jan 2019 06:18:20 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=6957182019 started off with a rather interesting tweet from Elon Musk. He was showing off the "Starship test flight rocket" from SpaceX. This thing evokes a strong bit of imagery that has been so deeply integrated into our culture through science fiction for so many years that it just feels... right.

Just look at that thing! Well, as you can imagine, seeing that beautiful piece of work inspired me to yank out some retro science fiction and look at the old illustrations. There are so many examples that you could just swap the test rocket into and they'd seem nearly untouched. The issue I've chosen for today's Sci-Fi Sunday is one of these.

Publication: Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction

Issue: December 1962, Vol: LXXX, No. 4

Cover Art: Schoenherr for Blind Man's Lantern

When I scan one of these, I'm always curious what the public was thinking and seeing about space. NASA has a convenient website where you can go and see details on major events. In December of 1962, the public was hearing about how Mariner 2 had flown by Venus, which was a pretty huge deal considering this was the very first time we had "conducted a planetary encounter". Just picture that for a second. When someone was relaxing and reading this issue, we had not yet put a human on the moon. We had put humans in space, but they've only done orbits at this point, and on December 14th, one of our space robots passes by Venus and sends us back information. That had to be incredibly exciting.

Aside from just checking on the general space news of the time, it is also intriguing to look at what the Apollo program was doing. I found a more detailed breakdown on what was happening within the Apollo program during November and December of 1962. NASA was deep in planning and testing, with the most interesting part I found being that they determined we should definitely have a bunch of cameras on board with the astronauts, and they hoped the government would supply those cameras. The government ultimately agreed.

by Schelling for Blind Man's Lantern

There's that beautiful rocket again. Obviously Musk's needs more portholes, but hey, they have time to iterate.

by Schelling for Blind Man's Lantern

by Schelling for Blind Man's Lantern

by Schelling for Blind Man's Lantern

by Schoenherr for Subversive

by Schoenherr for Subversive

by Shelling for -And Devious The Line Of Duty

by Shelling for -And Devious The Line Of Duty

by Shelling for -And Devious The Line Of Duty

by Shelling for -And Devious The Line Of Duty

In the middle of the issue there is a non-fiction piece entitled Intelligent Noise. It basically talks about some of the ways in which we secure radio communications using pseudo random noise generation. I'm not going to get into how that works, I'm here for the art and pictures! I've copied the captions to each picture as they were in the issue.

The Big Bird -- here a Thor-Delta -- takes off! But every such bird has to carry a built-in destruct circuit to destroy it if something goes wrong and it heads for a city instead of an orbit. (Official U.S. Air Force Photo)

Small button -- for big results. A special coded signal must be able to destroy a wild launch vehicle (Wide World Photos)

Sometimes -- as in the Johnson Island tests, and the first of the recent Mariner Venus-probe shots -- the destruct button is pushed. But the problem is to keep an accidental signal -- a mis-operating diathermy machine, a static burst from lightning -- from triggering the destruct circuit. The lock-and key characteristics of PRNG multi-frequency-channel systems provide jam-proof signaling. (Wide World Photos)

A russian trawler mother ship some 80 miles off Cape Cod. It is certain that the Russians are fishing... but some of the trawlers are fishing in the radio spectrum, rather than the sea. It's a little difficult, however, to catch such frequency-agile fish as PRNG transmission permits! And there are times when we'd prefer to have telemetry and radar data strictly private, even though broadcast. (Wide World Photos)

by Schoenherr for Space Viking

by Schoenherr for Space Viking

I love this design for a space suit by Schoenherr. It doesn't seem to fit with the typical aesthetic of the time.

by Schoenherr for Space Viking

by Schoenherr for Space Viking

by Schoenherr for Space Viking

]]><p>2019 started off with a rather interesting tweet from Elon Musk. He was showing off the "Starship test flight rocket" from SpaceX. This thing evokes a strong bit of imagery that has been so deeply integrated into our culture through science fiction for so many years that it just feels... right.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Starship test flight rocket just finished assembly at the <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SpaceX</a> Texas launch site. This is an actual picture, not a rendering. <a href="https://t.co/k1HkueoXaz">pic.twitter.com/k1HkueoXaz</a></p>
<p>&#8212; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083567087983964160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p>
</p><p>Just look at that thing! Well, as you can imagine, seeing that beautiful piece of work inspired me to yank out some retro science fiction and look at the old illustrations. There are so many examples that you could just swap the test rocket into and they'd seem nearly untouched. The issue I've chosen for today's Sci-Fi Sunday is one of these.</p>
<p><strong>Publication:</strong> Analog Science Fact - Science Fiction</p>
<p><strong>Issue:</strong> December 1962, Vol: LXXX, No. 4</p>
<p><strong>Cover Art:</strong> Schoenherr for <em>Blind Man's Lantern</em></p>
<p>When I scan one of these, I'm always curious what the public was thinking and seeing about space. NASA has a convenient website where you can <a href="https://history.nasa.gov/40thann/define.htm">go and see details on major events</a>. In December of 1962, the public was hearing about how Mariner 2 had flown by Venus, which was a pretty huge deal considering this was the very first time we had "conducted a planetary encounter". Just picture that for a second. When someone was relaxing and reading this issue, we had not yet put a human on the moon. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/sci-fi-sundays-analog-decemb.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/sci-fi-sundays-analog-decemb.html/feed27695718https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/sci-fi-sundays-analog-decemb.htmlThis case turns your iPhone into a point-and-shoot camerahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/UsuC0aDHnQo/this-case-turns-your-iphone-in.htmlPostshopBoing Boing's ShopSun, 20 Jan 2019 06:00:07 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=694689These days, there isn't much our iPhone camera can't do - except feel like an actual phone. Despite years of steadily increasing resolution and image sensing technology, we're still taking shots awkwardly with two hands, fumbling for the shutter button. Leave it to an avid photographer to design Shuttercase, a versatile iPhone case that solves that problem and more.

Most significantly for photographers of any experience, the Shuttercase moves the shutter button to the side - just like the classic 135 point-and-shoots. It further replicates that feel with the case itself, which supplies enough heft that you can grip it and shoot with one hand. It also packs an embedded stand, and - because long photo sessions can drain your phone like nothing else - a 3,000 mAh battery that will charge as you go. Now you're set to unlock the full potential of your camera, whether that's panoramic vacation shots or perfectly composed family photos.

]]><p>These days, there isn't much our iPhone camera can't do - except feel like an actual phone. Despite years of steadily increasing resolution and image sensing technology, we're still taking shots awkwardly with two hands, fumbling for the shutter button. Leave it to an avid photographer to design <a href="https://store.boingboing.net/sales/shuttercase-for-iphone-x-xs-black?utm_source=boingboing.net&#38;utm_medium=referral&#38;utm_campaign=shuttercase-for-iphone-x-xs-black&#38;utm_term=scsf-314803&#38;utm_content=a0x1P000004fif7&#38;scsonar=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shuttercase</a>, a versatile iPhone case that solves that problem and more.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Most significantly for photographers of any experience, the Shuttercase moves the shutter button to the side - just like the classic 135 point-and-shoots. It further replicates that feel with the case itself, which supplies enough heft that you can grip it and shoot with one hand. It also packs an embedded stand, and - because long photo sessions can drain your phone like nothing else - a 3,000 mAh battery that will charge as you go. Now you're set to unlock the full potential of your camera, whether that's panoramic vacation shots or perfectly composed family photos.</p>
<p>Originally $79.99, the <a href="https://store.boingboing.net/sales/shuttercase-for-iphone-x-xs-black?utm_source=boingboing.net&#38;utm_medium=referral&#38;utm_campaign=shuttercase-for-iphone-x-xs-black&#38;utm_term=scsf-314803&#38;utm_content=a0x1P000004fif7&#38;scsonar=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shuttercase for iPhone is now 37% off</a> at $49.99. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/this-case-turns-your-iphone-in.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/this-case-turns-your-iphone-in.html/feed8694689https://boingboing.net/2019/01/20/this-case-turns-your-iphone-in.htmlFundraising to save Burbank's horror bookstore Dark Delicacieshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/oN90WAXu6xo/save-dark-delicacies.htmlPost#savemagnoliaparkbooksburbankcaliforniacrowdfundinghappy mutantshorrormagnolia parkCory DoctorowSat, 19 Jan 2019 14:52:04 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696313
Burbank's amazing quarter-century institution Dark Delicacies is a horror book-, memoribilia- and clothing-store that is a community hub for genre creators, hosting a wonderful stream of events, signings, and even an annual chance to get your photo took with Krampus at a Christmas open-house.

It's also a potential casualty of the skyrocketing rents in Magnolia Park, where greedy landlords are throwing out the neighborhood's unique indie tenants as fast as they can in the hopes of luring in multinational corporations to open stores that can already be found in every mall and that will destroy any reason for people to come to the neighborhood in the first place.

I live a five-minute walk from Dark Delicacies and they've hosted events and fulfilled signed-book orders for me in the past. They're great, community-minded people, and due to a rent-hike, they're moving to a space around the corner (it could be worse -- until they found the new space, they were going to shut down altogether).

But having run a shoestring, passion business for so many years, they lack the funds to pay for the move, so they're hoping their supporters in the neighborhood will kick in for a GoFundMe where they're hoping to raise $20,000. They're at $3,400 right now and I just kicked in $100.

One of our greatest joys has been giving back, by sponsoring and hosting numerous charity events for both our two and four-legged friends. We are very proud of the “people of horror,” whose support and generosity have helped so many.

We knew we would never become rich running the store, and that was okay. We just wanted to be able to do something we loved and be a part of the community we cherished.

Unfortunately, like so many other places, the landscape in Burbank is changing. Rents have skyrocketed, and many of the unique stores that put the area on the map have been forced to move or close their doors altogether. This little neck of the woods is so beloved, a Save Magnolia Park campaign and video were created.

With our lease up in May, Sue and I thought it was the end of our brick and mortar store. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be forced to close, just shy of our 25th anniversary. We were heartbroken.

Then, a store front around the corner became available. A possible new location, coupled with all the people who wrote and stopped by asking us to stay in business, made Sue and I realize we weren’t ready to go quietly into the night.

<p>
Burbank's amazing quarter-century institution <a href="https://www.darkdel.com/">Dark Delicacies</a> is a horror book-, memoribilia- and clothing-store that is a community hub for genre creators, hosting a wonderful stream of events, signings, and even an annual <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dark+delicacies+%22krampus%22&#038;num=50&#038;client=ubuntu&#038;hs=Rgh&#038;channel=fs&#038;source=lnms&#038;tbm=isch&#038;sa=X&#038;ved=0ahUKEwjosY7b9frfAhXDVLwKHbX_CTsQ_AUIDigB&#038;biw=1223&#038;bih=695">chance to get your photo took with Krampus</a> at a Christmas open-house.
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</p><p>
It's also a potential casualty of the <a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/07/23/beautiful-downtown-burbank.html">skyrocketing rents in Magnolia Park</a>, where greedy landlords are throwing out the neighborhood's unique indie tenants as fast as they can in the hopes of luring in multinational corporations to open stores that can already be found in every mall and that will destroy any reason for people to come to the neighborhood in the first place.
</p><p>
I live a five-minute walk from Dark Delicacies and they've hosted events and fulfilled signed-book orders for me in the past. They're great, community-minded people, and due to a rent-hike, they're moving to a space around the corner (it could be worse -- until they found the new space, they were going to shut down altogether).
</p><p>
But having run a shoestring, passion business for so many years, they lack the funds to pay for the move, so they're hoping their supporters in the neighborhood will kick in for a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/dark-delicacies-relocation-fundraiser">GoFundMe</a> where they're hoping to raise $20,000. They're at $3,400 right now and I just kicked in $100.
</p><p>
<blockquote>
<p>
One of our greatest joys has been giving back, by sponsoring and hosting numerous charity events for both our two and four-legged friends. We are very proud of the “people of horror,” whose support and generosity have helped so many.</p></blockquote> <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/save-dark-delicacies.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/save-dark-delicacies.html/feed8696313https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/save-dark-delicacies.htmlMob of young MAGA hat wearers surrounds Native American elder and mock him [UPDATED WITH NEW VIDEO]http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/msRK0bxIZto/mob-of-young-maga-hat-wearers.htmlVideoredhatsMark FrauenfelderSat, 19 Jan 2019 09:36:59 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696293

UPDATE 1-20-19: This story appears to be more complex than what was seen in the video above and from news reports in the Washington Post, CNN, New York Times, and other major news media. After watching a much longer video that shows the lead-up and aftermath of the incident, it doesn't look like the high school students were harassing the Native Americans as was reported yesterday.

James Martin, a Jesuit priest, an editor at large America Magazine has excellent insight into the complexities of this still-unfolding story, which he wrote in the form of a Twitter thread:

And I don't agree with Reason all the time (I agree with their stance on civil liberties and disagree with their stance on unfettered free markets) but the Reason essay the Jake Tapper retweeted is worth reading if you are interested in this story:

Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts are on lockdown this morning after a video was posted that shows a mob of students intimidating a Native American elder in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

The all-male school was participating in a March for Life rally, which coincided with the Indigenous People's March. As shown in the video, the students have surrounded a Native American man playing a drum and are hooting war cries and mocking him. The elder's name is Nathan Phillips, a Vietnam veteran and an Omaha keeper of a sacred pipe.

One of the students gets very close to Phillips' face and stares at him with a disturbing grin for several minutes as Phillips sings and beats the drum.

The elder is Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder who is also a Vietnam Veteran and former director of the Native Youth Alliance. He is also a keeper of a sacred pipe and holds an annual ceremony honoring Native American veterans in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Phillips is also the subject of a previous racially-based incident when he was taunted and harassed by Eastern Michigan University students who were dressed stereo-typically as Native Americans. As reported in FOX 2 News, he was yelled at and hit by a thrown beer can.

]]><p></p>
<p><strong>UPDATE 1-20-19: This story appears to be more complex than what was seen in the video above and from news reports in the <em>Washington Post, CNN, New York Times</em>, and other major news media. After watching a <a href="https://youtu.be/t3EC1_gcr34">much longer video</a> that shows the lead-up and aftermath of the incident, it doesn't look like the high school students were harassing the Native Americans as was reported yesterday.</strong></p>
<p>James Martin, a Jesuit priest, an editor at large America Magazine has excellent insight into the complexities of this still-unfolding story, which he wrote in the form of a Twitter thread:</p>
<strong><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1087108813331857411.html">Thread by @JamesMartinSJ: "Re : I will be happy to apologize for condemning the actions of the students if it turns out that they were somehow acti […]" #CovingtonHighSchool</a></strong>
<p></p>
<p><strong>And I don't agree with Reason all the time (I agree with their stance on civil liberties and disagree with their stance on unfettered free markets) but the Reason essay the Jake Tapper retweeted is worth reading if you are interested in this story:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/reason?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@reason</a>: “Video footage strongly contradicts Native American veteran Nathan Phillips&#39; claim that Covington Catholic High School boys harassed him. The media got this one completely wrong,” writes <a href="https://twitter.com/robbysoave?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@robbysoave</a> <a href="https://t.co/9Ki4iiTkQ9">https://t.co/9Ki4iiTkQ9</a></p>
<p>&#8212; Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1087100286433402881?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 20, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p><strong>I'll continue to update this post as new information emerges.</strong></p>
<p>Kentucky's Covington Catholic High School's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts are on lockdown this morning after a video was posted that shows a mob of students intimidating a Native American elder in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mob-of-young-maga-hat-wearers.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mob-of-young-maga-hat-wearers.html/feed263696293https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mob-of-young-maga-hat-wearers.htmlHappy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/ivl_gdqnsLo/swing-hip-me-what-thy-tag-is.htmlVideohappy mutantshorrorPoepoetrythe night's plutonian shorevideosyoutubeCory DoctorowSat, 19 Jan 2019 09:00:40 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696289

Neil Gaiman says Edgar Allan Poe should be read aloud, and he's right: he recorded this video of him reading "The Raven" in 2016 as part of Pat Rothfuss's Worldbuilders charity drive. It's Poe's birthday today, and I can think of no better way to celebrate it than to listen to it again.

<p>
Neil Gaiman says <a href="https://boingboing.net/2009/01/19/gaiman-on-poe-read-h.html">Edgar Allan Poe should be read aloud</a>, and he's right: he recorded this video of him reading "The Raven" in 2016 as part of Pat Rothfuss's Worldbuilders charity drive. It's Poe's birthday today, and I can think of no better way to celebrate it than to <a href="https://www.tor.com/2018/01/19/neil-gaiman-reads-the-raven-by-edgar-allan-poe/">listen to it again</a>.
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</p><p>
Other ways to celebrate this magnificent torch:
</p><p>
* <a href="https://boingboing.net/2016/09/19/edgar-allan-poes-the-raven.html">The spectacular pop-up edition</a>
</p><p>
* <a href="https://boingboing.net/2008/09/09/poes-the-raven-trans.html">The 50s hipster argot edition</a>
</p><p>
* <a href="https://boingboing.net/2007/01/19/rock-and-roll-cover.html">The 1969 rock-and-roll version</a>
</p><p>
* <a href="https://boingboing.net/2015/07/29/vincent-price-vs-boris-karlof.html">Vincent Price and Boris Karloff's Raven-inspired magic duel</a>
</p><p>
(<a href="https://boingboing.net/2018/01/19/flipped-the-bugbird-nevermore.html">Reposted from last year</a>)
<a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/swing-hip-me-what-thy-tag-is.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/swing-hip-me-what-thy-tag-is.html/feed13696289https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/swing-hip-me-what-thy-tag-is.htmlThe EU's plan to impose mandatory copyright filters is on life-support and may diehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/CXuW2YDbcPk/axel-voss-hostage-freed.htmlPostarticle 11article 13Copyfighteueucdve dayCory DoctorowSat, 19 Jan 2019 08:55:27 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696291
This Monday, the final "trilogue" (a meeting between the European Parliament, the European Presidency, and the EU member-states) was supposed to convene to wrap up the negotiations on the first update to the Copyright Directive since 2001, including the controversial Article 13 (mandatory copyright filters for online services) and Article 11 (letting news sites decide who can link to them and charging for the privilege).

But that meeting has been cancelled and now the whole thing is on life-support. If the Trilogue can be reconvened in a matter of days, then it's just possible that it could finish it work and send a final draft to the Parliament to be voted on, but that's getting less likely by the second, and a delay of more than a day or two will mean that this is off the table until after the next EU Parliamentary elections in the spring -- which is also after Brexit -- and which will likely result in a very different landscape for this kind of legislative gift to corporate lobbyists (between the rise of insurgent parties in the EU, and Brexit eliminating the UK MEPs most likely to carry water for companies like EMI and Sky).

Here's a very short version of how the Trilogue got cancelled and the Directive got put on life-support: back in the spring, Axel Voss, a German MEP, took over the drafting of the Directive, and revived the no-compromise versions of Articles 11 and 13, throwing out years of negotiations in order to give the record industry and aristocratic German newspaper families a huge legislative favour.

But the backers of Articles 11 and 13 were hardline, no-compromise copyright ultras who rejected any compromise language. The movie studio and TV divisions of the corporations that had backed Article 13 (through their music-label divisions) denounced Article 13 and called for it to be deleted from the Directive. They had won a ridiculous court victory in Germany and hoped to leverage that into effectively forcing all the internet companies out of business, so they could be turned into subsidiary arms of the entertainment conglomerates, much in the same way that Napster was just absorbed into BMG. Creating a rule that Big Tech could follow, even one as onerous as Article 13, scuttled that plan.

Then, the music industry also denounced the "compromise version" of Article 13, because it had been amended so that it was just barely possible for Google and the other Big Tech companies to actually comply with -- the record industry had been hoping to stick Big Tech with an impossible-to-follow rule, and then to use that rule as negotiating leverage to get them to pay more for music licenses ("Now you have to license from us, on our terms, because it is impossible for you to comply with Article 13, and only we can relieve you of the obligation to abide by it"). There are lots of problems with this, but the biggest one is that even after securing permission from the record labels, Big Tech would still be liable to enforcement from millions of other rightsholders.

Big Content's intransigence was the anvil, but the hammer was ordinary Europeans, leaning on their national governments. A campaign to get citizens of key nations to contact their governments was hugely successful, and the targeted countries let the EU Presidency know that they, too, would not stand for the Directive with Articles 11 and 13 intact.

Faced with both popular anger and corporate backers who had massively overplayed their hands, the EU Presidency threw in the towel, announced that there was no basis for negotiations, and canceled Monday's trilogue.

This stands a very high likelihood of killing off Articles 11 and 13 for good. As noted above, without a miraculous last-minute reprieve, the trilogue will almost certainly not reconvene until after the elections, and after Brexit, and that's going to be a very different world.

But the bad news is that as a result of Voss taking the Copyright Directive hostage to serve the parochial interests of German newspaper families and the vice-presidents of the entertainment companies' music divisions, the EU might not get all the other, noncontroversial, overdue technical updates to its copyright rules, long negotiated and badly needed. This should be remembered come the elections this spring: Voss's kack-handed attempt to sacrifice free speech, competition, the EU tech sector, and privacy to eke out some marginal gains for special interest groups has been a catastrophe, and it's all on him.

MEP Julia Reda now has the full breakdown of the votes, noting that 11 countries voted against the "compromise" text: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Slovenia, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Luxembourg and Portugal. That's... a pretty big list. Reda points out that most of those countries were concerned about the impact on users' rights (Portugal and Croatia appear to be outliers). That's pretty big -- as it means that any new text (if there is one) should move in a better direction, not worse.

As Reda notes, this does not mean that the Copyright Directive or Article 13 are dead. They could certainly be revived with new negotiations (and that could happen soon). But, it certainly makes the path forward a lot more difficult. Throughout all of this, as we've seen in the past, the legacy copyright players plowed forward, accepting no compromise and basically going for broke as fast as they could, in the hopes that no one would stop them. They've hit something of a stumbling block here. It won't stop them from still trying, but for now this is good news. The next step is making sure Article 13 is truly dead and cannot come back. The EU has done a big thing badly in even letting things get this far. Now let's hope they fix this mess by dumping Articles 11 and 13.

<p>
This Monday, the final "trilogue" (a meeting between the European Parliament, the European Presidency, and the EU member-states) was supposed to convene to wrap up the negotiations on the first update to the Copyright Directive since 2001, including the controversial <a href="https://boingboing.net/tag/article-13">Article 13</a> (mandatory copyright filters for online services) and <a href="https://boingboing.net/tag/article-11">Article 11</a> (letting news sites decide who can link to them and charging for the privilege).
<span id="more-696291"></span>
</p><p>
But that meeting has been cancelled and now the whole thing is on life-support. If the Trilogue can be reconvened in a matter of days, then it's <em>just</em> possible that it could finish it work and send a final draft to the Parliament to be voted on, but that's getting less likely by the second, and a delay of more than a day or two will mean that this is off the table until after the next EU Parliamentary elections in the spring -- which is also after Brexit -- and which will likely result in a very different landscape for this kind of legislative gift to corporate lobbyists (between the rise of insurgent parties in the EU, and Brexit eliminating the UK MEPs most likely to carry water for companies like EMI and Sky).
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Here's a very short version of how the Trilogue got cancelled and the Directive got put on life-support: back in the spring, Axel Voss, a German MEP, took over the drafting of the Directive, and revived the no-compromise versions of Articles 11 and 13, throwing out years of negotiations in order to give the record industry and aristocratic German newspaper families a huge legislative favour. <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/axel-voss-hostage-freed.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/axel-voss-hostage-freed.html/feed11696291https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/axel-voss-hostage-freed.htmlAOC's debut speech as Congresswoman is the most popular Congressional video in C-SPAN historyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/C_pNjrlDtuU/dominating-the-national-conver.htmlPostAlexandria Ocasio-Cortezaocc-spanDemocratsdsatwitteruspolivideosCory DoctorowSat, 19 Jan 2019 08:04:01 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696282
It's been three days since C-SPAN posted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's amazing, stirring freshman speech from the floor of Congress, and it has smashed all Congressional C-SPAN records with 3.1m views (as of the time of writing); at this rate, it may catch up with C-SPAN's most popular Senate video, the Kamala Harris/Brett Kavanaugh video, with 7.14m views.

First House Floor speech from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC): “The truth of this shutdown is that it's actually not about a wall...The truth is, this shutdown is about the erosion of American democracy and the subversion of our most basic governmental norms." pic.twitter.com/r8tmsGSNtT

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It's been three days since C-SPAN <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1085737193564504066?s=21">posted</a> Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/17/aocs-debut-speech-on-the-con.html">amazing, stirring freshman speech</a> from the floor of Congress, and it has <a href="https://twitter.com/HowardMortman/status/1085950970092310528">smashed all Congressional C-SPAN records</a> with 3.1m views (as of the time of writing); at this rate, it may catch up with C-SPAN's most popular Senate video, the <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1037518507423002629?lang=en">Kamala Harris/Brett Kavanaugh video</a>, with 7.14m views.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">First House Floor speech from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a>): “The truth of this shutdown is that it&#39;s actually not about a wall...The truth is, this shutdown is about the erosion of American democracy and the subversion of our most basic governmental norms.&#34; <a href="https://t.co/r8tmsGSNtT">pic.twitter.com/r8tmsGSNtT</a></p>&#8212; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1085737193564504066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">In just over 12 hours C-SPAN tweet of <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepAOC</a> floor remarks last nite have become most-viewed twitter video by <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@cspan</a> of any remarks by a member of House either party. 1.16M <a href="https://t.co/lkd0vK33cj">https://t.co/lkd0vK33cj</a>Most viewed tweet video of a Sen? <a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KamalaHarris</a> questioning Kavanaugh (7.14M views <a href="https://t.co/2ulf1fNddc">pic.twitter.com/2ulf1fNddc</a></p>&#8212; Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) <a href="https://twitter.com/HowardMortman/status/1085950970092310528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Complete exchange between <a href="https://twitter.com/SenKamalaHarris?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@senkamalaharris</a> and Judge Kavanaugh on Mueller Investigation. <a href="https://t.co/FXhW3XmV19">pic.twitter.com/FXhW3XmV19</a></p>&#8212; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1037518507423002629?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 6, 2018</a></blockquote>
<a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/dominating-the-national-conver.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/dominating-the-national-conver.html/feed10696282https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/dominating-the-national-conver.htmlRegular says she was banned from eating at the bar at Manhattan's scammy Nello restaurant because she might be a sex-workerhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/1Qtd14ejOAk/mike-pence-dining.htmlPost#metoogendernellonew york citynot foodSexCory DoctorowSat, 19 Jan 2019 07:54:13 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696277
After marketing executive Clementine Crawford published an essay about being banned from eating at the bar at her favorite New York restaurant, Nello (a notorious ripoff joint), because the owner (already notorious for labor abuses) was "cracking down on escorts" and had decreed that only men would be permitted to dine at the bar, The Cut tried to get a comment on it from Balan, whose employees repeatedly hung up on them.

According to Crawford, when she told the owner that his policy was unfair and discriminatory and reminded him that she was a regular who'd spent a small fortune eating at his bar, the owner said "he could run his business as he pleased, and that I was no longer welcome to eat at the bar, only at a table."

I travel a lot and one of my favorite things to do when I'm out of town is "take myself out on a date." Often I've been in intensely social situations all day, speaking to a crowd, or being in close company with a group of colleagues, and -- hermit that I am -- I'm ready for some solo time.

So I'll go to a nice restaurant, the kind of place you usually need a reservation for, and just get a seat at the bar, where I can eyeball the whisky selection and find a really nice one to sample, and then I order stinky things that I normally avoid because my wife won't kiss me after I've eaten them (she's allergic to shellfish, so this is my chance to eat a lot of oysters).

Refusing to seat women at the bar is all kinds of wrong, and as a fellow hardcore traveller, my heart goes out to Crawford. As to Balan, between his disrespect for all women, his disrespect for his workers, and his disrespect for sex workers, well, New York has a a lot of great restaurants to choose from, and Eater description of Nello ("known for its luxe scene, mediocre food, and ridiculous prices") makes it clear that even without the gender discrimination and labor issues, there's no reason to try the place.

Angry at an apparent double standard, Crawford reportedly flagged down a waiter she “knew best,” who, she says, quietly advised that she “shouldn’t cause a scene and that there was nothing to be done.” Crawford, however, didn’t let it drop: She pressed the matter, and says that she eventually found out the owner, Nello Balan, intended to “crack down” on escorts. Apparently, he had made some assumptions about her job, which — while not offensive to Crawford — smacked of discrimination. Crawford says she asked to speak to the Balan (who, incidentally, has been sued by his workforce for allegedly withholding pay and allegedly breaking other labor laws): “He told me that he could run his business as he pleased, and that I was no longer welcome to eat at the bar, only at a table,” she writes.

When I called Nello for comment, the maitre d’ hung up on me twice, the second time saying that the owner was not available, and to call back later. (The staffer ended the call as I asked when the owner would return.) An emailed request for comment had not been answered at time of publication.

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After marketing executive Clementine Crawford <a href="https://drugstoreculture.com/the-night-i-was-mistaken-for-a-call-girl/">published an essay</a> about being banned from eating at the bar at her favorite New York restaurant, Nello (a <a href="https://boingboing.net/2012/04/09/headed-to-new-york-watch-out.html">notorious ripoff joint</a>), because the owner (already notorious for labor abuses) was "cracking down on escorts" and had decreed that only men would be permitted to dine at the bar, The Cut <a href="https://www.thecut.com/amp/2019/01/will-manhattan-restaurant-nello-let-women-sit-alone-at-bar.html">tried to get a comment on it</a> from Balan, whose employees repeatedly hung up on them.
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According to Crawford, when she told the owner that his policy was unfair and discriminatory and reminded him that she was a regular who'd spent a small fortune eating at his bar, the owner said "he could run his business as he pleased, and that I was no longer welcome to eat at the bar, only at a table."
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I travel <em>a lot</em> and one of my favorite things to do when I'm out of town is "take myself out on a date." Often I've been in intensely social situations all day, speaking to a crowd, or being in close company with a group of colleagues, and -- hermit that I am -- I'm ready for some solo time.
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So I'll go to a nice restaurant, the kind of place you usually need a reservation for, and just get a seat at the bar, where I can eyeball the whisky selection and find a really nice one to sample, and then I order stinky things that I normally avoid because my wife won't kiss me after I've eaten them (she's allergic to shellfish, so this is my chance to eat <em>a lot</em> of oysters). <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mike-pence-dining.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mike-pence-dining.html/feed55696277https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/mike-pence-dining.htmlFirefox is finally fixing its broken screenshot toolhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/FxtXnlYEzUo/save-isnt-upload.htmlPostdark patternsfirefoxmozillanonconsensual cloudsprivacyCory DoctorowSat, 19 Jan 2019 07:25:58 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696274
Firefox's screenshot tool has a lot going for it, but after two days of trying to use it I gave up and went back to using Ksnapshot (now Spectacle) for the near-constant screenshotting I do, all day long: that's because when you hit "save" in Firefox's screenshot UI, it didn't save it to your hard-drive, rather, it uploaded it to a Mozilla server, which, in addition to being time-consuming and stupid, was also a potential huge privacy risk (if, for example, you were screenshotting a sensitive document to retain for later).

Thankfully, this will be fixed, after months of user complaints, as part of the shut-down of the Test Pilot program, which runs the servers that the screenshots were uploaded to.

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Firefox's screenshot tool has a lot going for it, but after two days of trying to use it I gave up and went back to using Ksnapshot (now Spectacle) for the near-constant screenshotting I do, all day long: that's because when you hit "save" in Firefox's screenshot UI, it didn't save it to your hard-drive, rather, it <em>uploaded it to a Mozilla server</em>, which, in addition to being time-consuming and stupid, was also a potential huge privacy risk (if, for example, you were screenshotting a sensitive document to retain for later).
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Thankfully, this will be fixed, after months of user complaints, as part of the shut-down of the Test Pilot program, which runs the servers that the screenshots were uploaded to.
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On Zdnet, <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-to-remove-misleading-button-after-months-of-complaints/">Catalin Cimpanu calls this a "dark pattern,"</a> and it's easy to understand why: so many online services try to trick you into using the cloud, storing data remotely even when there's no good reason for it, to train us to use <a href="https://tr4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2016/11/29/9ea5f375-d0dd-4941-891b-f35e7580ae27/resize/770x/982bcf36f7a68242dce422f54f8d445c/49nocloud.jpg">other peoples' computers</a> rather than our own.
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I don't know that Mozilla has that same motivation, but this really was a terrible piece of UI with real risks to users, and it's so good to see it finally dying in a fire.
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You can turn off the antifeature right now by going to about:config and ticking on the extensions.screenshots.upload-disabled setting.
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<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-to-remove-misleading-button-after-months-of-complaints/">Firefox to remove misleading button after months of complaints</a> [Catalin Cimpanu/Zdnet]
<a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/save-isnt-upload.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/save-isnt-upload.html/feed15696274https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/save-isnt-upload.htmlDelicious unicorn poophttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/8pl29zk32ek/delicious-unicorn-poop.htmlPostunicorn chaserRob BeschizzaSat, 19 Jan 2019 06:31:45 PSThttps://boingboing.net/?p=696269Unicorn poop [Amazon] appears to be pastel-colored gourmet marshmallow chunks flavored with strawberry, lime, lemon and orange, guaranteed to be gluten- and nut-free. But don't let that put you off: I'm sure they're delicious.

Proudly ★ MADE IN THE USA ★ – Guaranteed to be the safest, tastiest, freshest, fluffiest Poop in town! Beware! ..other brands may come from China.

Other brands? Just how many brands of unicorn poop can the market support?

]]><p><a href="https://amzn.to/2U3hWKB">Unicorn poop</a> [Amazon] appears to be pastel-colored gourmet marshmallow chunks flavored with strawberry, lime, lemon and orange, guaranteed to be gluten- and nut-free. But don't let that put you off: I'm sure they're delicious.</p>
<blockquote><p>Proudly ★ MADE IN THE USA ★ – Guaranteed to be the safest, tastiest, freshest, fluffiest Poop in town! Beware! ..other brands may come from China. </p></blockquote>
<p>Other brands? Just how many brands of unicorn poop can the market support? <a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/delicious-unicorn-poop.html" class="read-more">Read the rest</a></p>https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/delicious-unicorn-poop.html/feed25696269https://boingboing.net/2019/01/19/delicious-unicorn-poop.html